


while my guitar gently weeps

by chaevity



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, also angst, follow me on wattpad, michaeng, okay but im so proud of this one what, okay but this is very good i think, there's like an inferred explicit scene at the end but just close ur eyes if ur a kid, twice, yuh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28497717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaevity/pseuds/chaevity
Summary: Chaeyoung’s lighthearted expression faded when she heard Mina’s words. She looked away and stared into the infinite universe, feeling frighteningly small as she lay under the same sky such kingdoms had lay years before. The two of them didn’t matter to the world—just two girls pitted against time’s passing. They were insignificant.Chaeyoung tightened her grip on Mina’s fingers.“Not us, Myoui Mina. Not us. We will not be forgotten.”In which Son Chaeyoung is taught to love the world through the unexpected.
Relationships: Myoui Mina/Son Chaeyoung
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	while my guitar gently weeps

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song from The White Album by The Beatles.

Mina swung her legs over New York City, eyes closed as cars sped below her. 

She was perched on the ledge of her apartment building, listening closely to the sounds of the city as she stared at the sky, wishing with all her might that the lights of the buildings and the smog of the cars wouldn’t drown out the glow of the stars she loved so dearly. 

Mina missed the country. 

She missed the sounds of the ground rumbling beneath her feet, the heartbeat of the world reverberating through her body as she lay against her one and only friend—the lovely Earth. She missed how she’d put her body against the growing grass, staring into the night sky as her mind ran through the places she’d configured—wandering in the wilderness of her imagination. 

She missed the feeling of mother nature holding her hand, whispering the secrets of the universe into her ear as Mina learned the beauty of softness. She remembered the words of her father—“Talk quietly, my dear. Don’t speak over the spirits”—and his imaginative tales of the wind making promises and the trees telling lies. 

(“Be silent, my dear,” he’d whisper to her. “Do you hear that sound? The leaves are brushing together, formulating uncertainty in their enemies. Beware of the lies the trees tell you, my love. You can never know just what the truth is.”)

As she aged, she learned the difference between true and make-believe—but when she was lying in the countryside, on the edge of the Earth with no one but herself, the difference between what she’d made and what the universe had didn’t matter. It was all real to her. 

Now, she’s sitting on the edge of an apartment building in the middle of New York City—still by herself, but much more alone than she’d ever been.

When her father passed away, she moved to the city.

It was nothing like the country. It was a snowglobe; beautiful on the outside but when you’re in the middle, all you can see are the chaotic flurries swirling and whipping around you with nauseating force and you can’t tell what is and what isn’t. Mina was inside the snowglobe, stuck behind the glass with nasty things and nasty people. 

In the city, everyone talked too loudly. 

She couldn’t hear the promises of the wind or the lies of the trees, the whispers of the world or the secrets of the foliage. No, the city was filled with meticulous snippets and drawn-out lies, the empty swears of the marginalized and hopeless tales of a love that never lasts.

Mina misses the country. 

“Please don’t be startled. You might fall.”

Maybe Mina isn’t as alone as she thinks. 

She peers over her shoulder, spotting a girl with shoulder-length curly hair the color of sandy deserts and eyes as vast as the oceans deep. 

Mina swallows.

The girl’s lips quirk up at the sides. She takes a step forward. “May I sit with you?”

Mina paused, observing the blonde. She was tempted to say no—in the country, Mina never wanted to share her space with anyone. It was her, her father, and her world.

But this isn’t the country anymore. Her father was gone and her Earth was buried deep below the surface, nestled in the ground far underneath her hanging feet. It’s not hers anymore. It can’t hurt. 

Mina nodded, dusting off the space on the ledge next to her. The girl approached her, pulling the blue striped button-up she was wearing down to cover her hands. She swung her legs over the edge and sat with Mina. 

“I’m Chaeyoung.” The girl spoke with a smile. “Son Chaeyoung.”

Silence.

“Do you ever miss a place you no longer belong, Son Chaeyoung?” Mina spoke after a moment’s pause, swallowing lightly. 

“No.” 

Mina peered over to where Chaeyoung was sitting, looking into the smoggy city. Chaeyoung glanced over with a soft smile that didn’t reach the depths of her eyes—the emptiness that lay there was terribly small, so slight that any person that wasn’t Mina would not have noticed. But Mina was Mina and of course she did, and she couldn’t help but feel drawn to the taunting hole that lay at the base of Chaeyoung’s pupils.

“I would have had to belong somewhere in the first place, no?” She spoke, holding Mina’s gaze.

Mina pulled herself out of the daze she had accidentally fallen into. “What do you mean?”

“You asked if I miss somewhere I no longer belong. But to be abrupt, if I may—I would have needed to belong somewhere in the first place. And I have not.” 

Chaeyoung spoke simply, bluntly; Mina felt enticed—or as enticed as she could feel, considering they met moments ago. Mina still missed the country, don’t get it twisted—but no one in the country was as keen as Chaeyoung was. Maybe she’d be different.

Mina looked away. “Yes, I do suppose you’re right.”

“What of the sky was so enticing that you foolishly allowed yourself to be drawn onto a dark, empty rooftop in New York City at midnight?” 

Chaeyoung giggled. “May I ask you the same question, beautiful girl who’s name I have not been given the privilege to learn?”

Mina wrinkled her nose. “No, you may not.”

They both melted into giggles. Mina looked over, watching Chaeyoung. When she laughed, her face brightened and the emptiness in her eyes grew minuscule—maybe she was right. Maybe Chaeyoung would be different. “And it’s Mina. Myoui Mina.”

“Mina,” Chaeyoung repeated. “A beautiful name for an even more beautiful girl.”

Mina groaned, head rolling back. “You flatter me.”

“Am I too cliche for you, country girl?”

“Far too cliche, Son Chaeyoung.”

They laughed again, shoulders bumping and elbows knocking. When their giggles melted into silence and they caught their breath, Chaeyoung spoke.

“If I cannot ask why you decided to come onto this rooftop,” —Mina pushed her gently, scoffing— “May I inquire the reasoning behind the question of belonging?”

Mina swallowed, face clouding over momentarily. But before Chaeyoung had time to apologize, the storm disappeared and clear skies returned. “I just miss my home.”

“The country?” Chaeyoung asked softly as Mina refocused her gaze to the horizon. “What part of the country do you miss?”

“All of it.” Mina breathed out. “The world I knew was dotted with supple greens and fathomless blues and cardinal reds and everything was enticing and nothing was constant. It was always similar, never the same. The city is bland and grey and awful I know you may not be able to see it, but after being surrounded by pure, unharnessed beauty all my life, all I can see is what it lacks.” 

“You never did tell me where you were taking me.”

“Be patient.” Chaeyoung adjusted the strap of her leather satchel so it sat more comfortably on her side before smiling back at Mina. “We’ll be there soon.”

They made their way down the grey manhattan street, hands laced to keep themselves from drifting away as they sifted through the dense New York mobs. Mina’s guitar, which had once been strapped to her back, was now clutched in her left arm in fear of desperate city people and their grabbing hands. 

Mina covered her mouth with her sleeve to keep herself from coughing. The thick air was saturated from exhaust—she could feel it building in the back of her throat, a smoky film coating her lungs as she tried to breathe through the reeking city air. Her body wasn’t used to downtown yet—it had grown too accustomed to the fresh oxygen that was available in heaps in the country, so when her lungs had been forced to down vaporous air, they protested greatly. Mina coughed again. 

Chaeyoung, having grown up in the city her entire life, was fairing rather well compared to her fellow counterpart. Her lungs had already grown grey from inhaling the city fumes, but she couldn’t blame Mina for coughing up a storm. Mina had gone from breathing in silky air as soft as the palm Chaeyoung was currently cupping to reluctantly inhaling oxygen from dreary, soot-covered urban land lying in the northeast, drenched in people with diseased lungs colored black and cars with grimy exhaust trailing out of their behinds. 

By the time the two had finally made it through the train station lobby with the piercing, soul-sucking lights and down to the subway platform that was illuminated by bulbs the color of rotting pumpkins, the back of Mina’s throat was bright red and her voice scratchy. Chaeyoung simply sighed and pressed a sticky cherry cough drop from the vending machine into her hand in hopes it would make her feel better as they waited for the train (they both knew that the cough drop had the effectiveness of a squashed candy bar—Mina carefully placed it onto her tongue anyway). 

Finally, the subway rolled onto the platform. Chaeyoung led Mina past the yellow line painted on the solid sidewalk and pulled her through the sliding train doors, curling onto a stiff orange seat and pulling her down onto the space in front of the window. But when a woman weighed down by a swelling belly and a hefty stroller made her way through the subway doors, they both stood up and instead gripped the metal bar banded above them.

(Mina stumbled into Chaeyoung several times throughout the uneven ride—but their lighthearted connection could not be severed, and despite how many times Mina’s weight ended up falling onto Chaeyoung’s shoulders, it was laughed away with soft giggles and light pushes instead of causing them to grow weary and irritable).

Several bus rides and two soft pretzels dipped in cheese sauce later, the two arrived at the secret destination Chaeyoung had dragged Mina out of bed for at five o’clock in the morning. The strikingly bare, frighteningly scarce side of New Jersey. 

“Chaeyoung, why did you bring me here?” Mina asked as they walked down a dreary asphalt sidewalk, observing the aged brick architecture and watching cheap silver convertibles rumble down the empty street. 

“I know this isn’t what you’re looking for,” Chaeyoung began, blushing rose as she felt her fingers accidentally brush Mina’s, “But there’s a bus that runs every afternoon at two we can ride to bring us out to the farming land. It isn’t identical, but it might be similar to what you’re used to.”

Mina stopped in her tracks. “You put this much thought into making me comfortable?” She looked up and down the street, a grin growing on her face. She turned back to Chaeyoung. “You might be the most thoughtful person I have ever met, Son Chaeyoung.”

Chaeyoung just smiled and reached for Mina’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Mina and Chaeyoungs’ hands had not disconnected the entire bus ride. They stayed clasped together as they walked through a forest in silence, staring through the thick green canopy and running their free hands over the rough brown bark. 

Their laced fingers only detached when they came to a grassy meadow. Mina had gasped and let go of Chaeyoung’s hand, running through the lush clearing and coming to a halt in the middle. She turned, looking back at Chaeyoung, before dropping backward and disappearing among the tall grass. 

Chaeyoung giggled and followed, quickly locating Mina and stumbling beside her. They looked at each other, laughing, before falling into silence as they stared into the vast blue sky. 

“Is this like what you’re used to?”  
Mina smiled over at the ever-considerate girl she’d met on a rooftop; she reached up and brushed a blonde strand of hair away from where it had fallen over Chaeyoung’s eyes. 

“Kind of,” She didn’t miss the way Chaeyoung’s face fell when she spoke, but she wasn’t finished. “You’re here, so it’s better.” 

She also didn’t miss the way the emptiness that had lay behind Chaeyoung’s eyelids disappeared fully when she finished her sentence, and she didn’t miss the way Chaeyoung laced their fingers together once more. 

They spent the day in the meadow. They sat with legs curled beneath them, talking continuously and Mina playing her guitar—but they always returned to their original position, hands clasped as they stared into the everlasting blue sheet stretched boundlessly above them.

“The world is so fascinating to think about,” Mina spoke into the sky. Chaeyoung looked over at her, carefully observing the way her lips moved and her nose crinkled when she spoke certain words. “The world has so much unrealized love to pass around, but no one realizes because it’s sleeping beneath our feet—like a dragon, too quiet to notice but too wild to tame at the same time.”

Chaeyoung smiled. “You’re amazing, do you know that?”

Mina didn’t look over. “Hundreds of empires once lay where we lay right now. They all believed they were eternal—and now, they are all but forgotten.”

Chaeyoung’s lighthearted expression faded when she heard Mina’s words. She looked away and stared into the infinite universe, feeling frighteningly small as she lay under the same sky such kingdoms had lay years before. The two of them didn’t matter to the world—just two girls pitted against time’s passing. They were insignificant. 

Chaeyoung tightened her grip on Mina’s fingers.

“Not us, Myoui Mina. Not us. We will not be forgotten.” 

Mina and Chaeyoung lay against each other in their dingy hotel room, skin against skin as moonlight poured through their open window. Only a comforter shielded their bare bodies from the outside world—anyone could be watching them lay in each other’s arms and stare into the timeless night sky. 

Chaeyoung tightened her grip around Mina’s waist. “Do you remember the question you asked me the first night we met?” She questioned, perching her chin atop Mina’s chest and staring into her eyes. Their sweaty skin stuck together awkwardly, but they couldn’t find it within themselves to care. 

Mina thought for a moment before responding. “The question about belonging?”

“Yes. That one.”

“What about it?”

Chaeyoung lay her face down again, peering at the night sky—just like she had done on a rooftop that one night. 

“Is it cliche to say I belong in your arms, country girl?”

“Far too cliche, Son Chaeyoung.”

Chaeyoung could feel Mina’s abdomen vibrate under her own, listening to her chesty laugh fill their small hotel room in the same way it filled her heart. 

And as Mina drifted to sleep that night, Chaeyoung listened to her steady heartbeat as she lay awake under the stars, whispering to herself. 

“How do you sleep, Myoui Mina?” She spoke to no one in particular. “I don’t understand it. For I am a simple bug, curled around a fluttering leaf while you are a beautiful garden, luscious and green. You belong to the country, but I belong to you, though I should not. How horrible. A tragedy for me.”

“It is not your fault, though I am making it out to sound like it is. You’re too gentle, you’d never hurt a soul.” Chaeyoung played with the sheets between her fingertips, trying to ignore her heating skin pressed against Mina’s. “You taught me to love the world from a rooftop, Myoui Mina. But I learned to love you on my own. What a cliche.” 

“But no cliche can save this poor heart of mine, can it?”


End file.
